Happy 423 years of us! 🎉 📚 The Bodleian Libraries opened for the first time on 8 November 1602... This means, we're older than the refracting telescope (1608), the publication of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1623) and Sir Isaac Newton's apple (1666)! 😅

no it can't, you're just describing phrenology, a white supremacist pseudoscience

Aw man I’d have loved to meet Turlough!

Not a particularly important bit, but where's "Computer, enhance" when you really need it? ان something نسخه 😝

I need one more reward idea around £100, if anyone's feeling inspired...

After the new edition of "Inks & Paints of the Middle East" is done and published, I'll conclude the trilogy with an "Inks & Paints from the rest of the world" 🤫 Cuz I need more books on my to-do list, apparently.

HOT LIBRARY INTEL: you can ask your library to purchase specific titles for their collection, usually right through the library's website. Librarians can't know every single new title, nor can they mind-read what their patrons might want to check out. Give it a shot!

The @changelingart.bsky.social auctions are returning, starting with 'Deck the Halls' later this month. Would there be interest if I were to auction this sketch from a few years ago? Inspired by a post on XTwitter by Anne Louise Avery, a flash fiction, one might call it (see below).

Cackling.

This made me laugh. Sadly true.

I don’t know what the occasion is but this sure brings back memories! ❤️

Just a heads up there's only one of these ever-so-blue packs left!

People are loving this week’s Nostalgia Tours, featuring the unique views, perspectives and opinions of @majnouna.com … don’t miss out! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...

😊

Fantastic description of LLM scat. I thought of the eponymous Robots of Death: no facial expressions, no body language. "While these robots are humanoid... they give no signals. It's rather like being surrounded by walking, talking, dead men." AI is mockery of life, like the voice of a ghost.

I'm just asking questions.

The planet isn’t “greening.” It’s photosynthetically busier but biologically poorer—more leaves, fewer living systems. New mini-essay with images: The Illusion of Greening ⤵︎ open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...

Figuring out postal rates for each reward for every destination, especially now that everyone's charging import taxes, is NOT the most fun part of a kickstarter 🫠

SO MUCH THIS. I see the ads EVERYWHERE. Why in hell would I want to even try chocolate labelled Dubai, like that part of the world is associated with anything that tastes good—or good taste, for that matter? Do people really fall for this transparent crap?

This. Always this.

@irisvanrooij.bsky.social, Professor of Computational Cognitive Science, reveals AI slop being used by #ScienceDirect, and, unsurprisingly, getting it wrong. "Stochastic regurgitation" is just the best term for what these programs do. irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2025/08/12/a...

If you're in London: www.stratfordeast.com/whats-on/all...

Two houses on the same street, both with drives. Yet just one of them reduces flood risk, retards heatwaves, and lights up the neighbourhood with welcoming greenery. We’ve lost millions of front gardens to overpaving in recent decades. We need to reverse that trend urgently.

Dammit, I want to vote for him! "izzayak ya Basha" finished me 😂😂😂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6r4...

Oh noes, it's another one of those D: #transcribing

It's a busy month: join me on Nov. 18, the UNESCO International Day of #IslamicArt, for an in-depth talk about "Kufi" as defining a self-contained early tradition of Arabic calligraphy. For Islamic Art Week 2025, I've prepared a brand new, exhaustive (& kickass) presentation that will take us from…

In directly related news, I just found a recipe in the original Umda text to make ink from privet. Present in my two reliable MS, absent from all published editions and "translations". WTF. bsky.app/profile/majn...

For the love of God stop calling capitalism “Technofeudalism.” This is not a mutant regression off the track of benign capitalism’s progress to utopia. This is capitalism doing capitalism.

After a Saturday in London doing all the art shows (so it felt like), a Sunday in the studio.

For all the (lack of) coverage it's received, you could be forgiven for not knowing that Israel invaded Syria, occupied several hundred square miles, and is now deploying its West Bank tactics to cut Syrian villages off from each other.

Thread about a second edition!

This is from Autocracy, Inc, about how modern autocratic propaganda works. I consider this every time I decide what to share and how to frame it.

It is true: many things were indeed invented in early modernity! It is also true that many things were only “invented” in early modernity because modern historians don’t like reading Latin or Arabic or Greek.

👇🚨👇🚨👇🚨👇🚨👇

Tonight’s #Halloween special was a highly atmospheric visit of Merton College’s 14th c. library, guided by @juliawalworth.bsky.social. Talk about gothic…

For the evening crew ‼️ NEW NOSTALGIA TOURS ‼️ Join @majnouna.com on her own Charter Flight, as she hands out handshakes and P45s to the stories, characters, writers and moments of her choice. It’s wonderfully unique and gloriously entertaining! Enjoy! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...

I made a daft little instagram reel to promote this, if you’re on there: www.instagram.com/reel/DQeUdUI...

So yesterday I found out my @bodleian.ox.ac.uk card is an A (which I could have found out by actually looking at it at any point in the last 6 months), meaning it still gives me access to manuscripts...

Just under two weeks left until our Kickstarter ends for Season 2 of the Holmwood Foundation. We’ve loved telling this story & we really want to continue we can’t proceed as planned if we don’t hit our goal Please help us continue paying our cast a professional wage and support lgbtqia+ cast & crew

Here it is, happy Halloween! 😆

Lil dude was not there 5 minutes ago. When I say they keep appearing…

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

100%

These are so wonderful, and so is the cause.

I never watched this but anyone who enjoyed the X-files will surely enjoy this fruity commentary podcast...

These fingerless gloves I knitted 2 years ago remain my best friends in winter. Even if the moths did take chunks out of them. The pattern was UnderHand, by Lynne Sosnowski.

One of the reasons I am reflexively Liberal when it comes to privacy is because when the government hoovers up data and deploys it for some collateral purpose, it is almost always to the detriment of individuals, whether through incompetence or malice.

Chatting with Rod was such a pleasure, and I think this conversation went some unexpected and interesting places! It was hard to keep quiet about it all this time 😆 Coming tomorrow!

I’m about to plunge back into stitching 😄

Impressive!